


Waters to Restore and Return

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rumbelle Reunion, Warning: Mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:44:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The rain brought her back to him once, perhaps it can do so again." Rumpelstiltskin is reunited with Belle in the Enchanted Forest, only to lose her again when the curse hits. To regain her, he must first regain something of his own he has long thought lost – courage. [Rated for violence and mentions of torture]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Born of going home from work sick with a fever, followed by sixteen hours worth of sleep and liquid paracetamol... 
> 
>  
> 
> **Warning:**
> 
>  
> 
> **This fic briefly [less than 700 words] depicts torture at the hands of clerics of an entirely fictional religious order. Please read at your own risk.**

Rumpelstiltskin wakes with a jolt, sitting bolt upright and looking around to see what has roused him from his slumber so suddenly and so thoroughly. Perhaps it was the rain, roaring and violent outside the window. No, somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears the memory of a voice, and he shakes his head to try and grasp the dream before it slips away.

It's then that realisation hits him, with all the force of a stampeding bull and more. Four simple words woke him, a desperate, pleading cry for help.

_Rumpelstiltskin, save me, please._

It is not the cry that takes his breath away. He has heard enough desperate souls call for the Dark One not to be shocked by their broken pleas. No, it is the voice, for it is _her_ voice, the voice of a woman he thought dead.

Belle is alive. Of that he has no doubt. The pain and utter anguish in her voice, in her weak little cry, is too real to be anything but. It is only a whisper, barely that, but her soul is all out of hope and positively screaming for release behind those four simple words. Belle is alive, and she has asked him for his help, and he could not obey more readily than if she held him in magical thrall with his knife. He does not pause to plan ahead, or even think of the possible consequences of his actions. He merely pinpoints her in space and distance and flies to her aid as fast as the wings of magic can take him.

His destination is dark, the only light provided by flickering candles in brackets that drip oily black wax down the walls. The floor is sticky underfoot and the cold stone chamber radiates the stench of a slaughterer's, mingled with the altogether more human scents of fear, despair and lost hope. Rumpelstiltskin knows the smell well enough. He's in a torture chamber.

Regina may have lied about Belle's death, but she did not lie about the clerics. There are five of them in the room, gathered at one end. Brothers of the Scarlet Order, clad in black and red. Immediately, Rumpelstiltskin knows where he is. The tower lies at the far corner of the duchy of Avonlea; built on the crossroads of the Five Kingdoms, none wish to take responsibility for it and thus it lies outside the jurisdiction of them all, so that the horrors it houses may be performed in peace.

Locally it is known as the Pit, its form looking like a shard of stone sinking into the depths of Hell itself.

No-one who has been taken there has ever returned.

Rumpelstiltskin feels his blood begin to boil in his veins. Her own father has done this to her, her own father has sent her to be flayed alive in the name of purity and righteousness. Sir Maurice will pay, as soon as the clerics are no more than simply another stain on their blood-soaked walls. He takes a step towards them.

It is then that he sees Belle.

X

Belle is strangely calm; maybe it's because she knows that she simply cannot last much longer, and soon it will all be over. She'll be safe when she's dead. It's the only thought that keeps her from going mad. Belle recognises her captors, the clerics. The zealots obsessed with the purity and salvation of others to hide their own dark and heinous desires. She no longer has the strength to be defiant, but by the Gods she was at first, screaming till her throat was raw and bleeding that she was no demon's harlot, that Rumpelstiltskin had never laid a finger on her and her chastity was still intact, which more than could be said for theirs.

She was punished more severely for disrespecting the Order than for her supposed transgressions. Somehow it is unthinkable not to assume that every maiden who enters the Dark One's castle automatically enters his bed as well.

They can hurt her as much as they like, lash her till the skin has all but gone from her back, burn her with fire and ice and prise her fingernails off one by one, but no matter how many times they snarl at her to repent and purge her soul, she will not do it. She has done nothing wrong.

She went with Rumpelstiltskin to save them all from the ravaging hordes of ogres, and this is how her sacrifice is repaid.

But by the Gods, she is tired, and she hurts so much that she is practically numb to it now. She wants it to be over. She has spent so long in her dark prison that she has lost all sense of time, of night and day.

The black candle wax is the worst, because although the heat is not as searing as flame itself, it melts so thick and oily that it sticks to the skin it burns and pulls it away when she tries to peel it off. (Or at least, she used to, before she lost her fingernails and all sense of purchase.) She groans when she sees it, not again.

The head of the clerics smiles, almost benevolently, he is worse than the rest because he genuinely believes that this is doing her soul good and she should be grateful to him for it.

"All it takes are four words, Belle," he sighs. "Just say them, my child, and all this can come to an end. Four words. _I repent my sin_."

Belle cannot take it anymore. She's had enough. So she says four words.

Not the four words they want to hear. Four words that she hopes will make the end swifter.

" _Rumpelstiltskin, save me, please_."

She closes her eyes in anticipation of the pain to come, but it never arrives. There is a scream, but it is not hers. She opens her eyes as the cacophony breaks out. One of the clerics is howling, clawing at the wax that now coats his face with one hand, whilst the other hangs limply at his side, the shoulder wrenched from its socket.

Belle blinks, because standing in the centre of the room, nothing short of _growling_ , is Rumpelstiltskin. When she had asked for his help, she had never expected him to hear her, and she had certainly never expected him to come to her. It is why she has never called him before. She did not want to lose false hope.

"Belle."

He comes towards her, the stupefied clerics letting him pass by, dumbstruck, and Belle cries, not because he is seeing her naked and broken and chained to a table, but because he's here, and it is all finally at an end. A small part of her wonders if she is dead, but no, she's still in too much pain. He's in a state she's never known him in before; his anger is burning, intense, and so very, very quiet. She was never afraid of him in his rages, when he would shout and throw things, but this is a different anger. She can see, though, that it's not directed at her. For her he has only sorrow, and pleading.

"Oh, Belle," he breathes, and his voice is barely more than a whisper as he touches her cheek, her tears coating his fingertips. "Oh Belle, I am so sorry, so very sorry."

The cleric brave or foolish enough to approach him is flung backwards into the dark depths of the room that Belle cannot see, but she can hear his screams. She squeezes her eyes tight shut.

"Save me," she breathes.

With a word she is free, and he swirls his cloak over her for warmth and modesty, lifting her off the table and into his arms.

"Don't look, Belle," he whispers, and her eyes remain closed.

She wishes she could close her ears as well.

But then all is still, and all is quiet, and when she dares to open her eyes and look up from his chest, they are in the Dark Castle once more, back in her old room. (Her actual room, with the wardrobe that she swore was enchanted, not the dungeon.)

"Oh Belle…"

He says her name like she's a miracle, that he can't quite believe she's real, when really, it's the other way round.

"You came," she whispers.

She can't fight it, the oncoming oblivion. It's as if she can let go now, safe in the knowledge that her ordeal is over, that there will be no more suffering.

"I will always come when you call," Rumpelstiltskin replies, his voice ever more distant. "Wherever you are."

X

Rumpelstiltskin is worried about Belle. She is healing physically; soon she will be up and about fully, her skin no longer flawed by cuts and burns, but he is not sure that even he can heal the scars upon her beautiful mind. No, they will always be there, to serve as a mocking reminder of what he did in casting her out, what he caused her to suffer.

She is getting better; after a week's rest and care, she no longer flinches at loud noises or shakes at the sight of a few flickering candle-flames in otherwise pitch black. She talks more animatedly now as he sits by her bedside to keep her company, and if he closes his eyes and listens to her, he can almost believe that she has fully returned to him. But when he sees her face and looks into those blue eyes, he can see that something's still not right. She's distant around him without actively shunning him; she lets him change her dressings and rub his salves into her skin, but she doesn't seek him out, she is not as free with her gentle touches as she used to be. What worries him most is that since that moment when she first saw him in the tower, she hasn't cried, not even when she's alone; there are no telltale signs of red-rimmed eyes and blotchy cheeks. He knows the catharsis of tears, and a part of him wants Belle to know it too, feels that it might help her.

The rain continues to pour around the castle, heavier and more violent than Rumpelstiltskin has ever known it.

He enters Belle's chamber one evening to find her sitting in the bay window, her knees drawn up to her chest under her nightgown. She often used to sit there before in idle hours, reading or sometimes just watching the world go by. She's watching the rain now, one hand pressed up against the glass.

"I want to go outside," she says as he sits down beside her.

"It's raining," he says, stupidly, because of course she knows it's raining, she's staring at the blasted stuff.

"I want to go outside," Belle repeats firmly, and she looks him in the eye. Rumpelstiltskin's stomach twists, because there's something there that wasn't there before, the tiniest spark of the old Belle in their azure depths. "I haven't been outside for months, Rumpel. I want to feel the wind and rain on my face."

"Dearie, you'll catch your death," he twitters, but he doesn't protest too much, because if this is what it takes to bring Belle back to him, fully and truly, then so be it.

"Please, Rumpel," she says. "Please, I need to feel it. To feel that it's real."

He nods, because he can't deny her anything. Not now, not after everything that's happened.

"All right, love. Let's go outside."

Rumpelstiltskin summons a thick outdoor cloak for her and she slips off the windowseat to put it on. He takes her shoulders in a gentle grip to transport them, to save time and Belle's precious energy. As they land in the kitchen, Belle reaches up and takes one of his hands in hers. It's the first time that she has actively reached out for him since they returned to the castle. She squeezes his fingers, and Rumpelstiltskin can tell that she is trying to draw on his courage to augment her own. He sighs, melancholy; she was always the one with enough bravery for the both of them, and she'll find precious little in him.

They go to the kitchen door that leads out to the little herb garden that Belle had tended so lovingly when she had first been with him. It is sadly unkempt now, a testament to her absence, a constant reminder of what he had and what he so foolishly let go.

Rumpelstiltskin steps out into the rain and is soaked to the skin in a matter of seconds, in spite of the thick dragonhide he wears. He hands Belle out of the door and she turns her face up into the deluge. She walks a few steps forward, turns down the hood of her cloak and then discards it altogether, raising her arms up and letting the rain drench her. Her nightgown is practically transparent and clinging to every curve. Rumpelstiltskin pushes those thoughts to the back of his mind and focuses on her face. He can almost see the rain washing away the last traces of her trauma as he hovers by her side. She is still weak from her ordeal; there is a limit to how much he is prepared to do with magic lest the price be too much for either of them to pay. To heal her completely in one fingersnap would be possible, but he would fear for the fallout it might do to her in other ways. She staggers a little under the force of the water, and Rumpelstiltskin catches her, pulling her in close against him. Not all the water running down her cheeks has come from the rain; she shudders with noiseless, racking sobs. He pets her sodden, rat-tailed hair, murmuring soothing nothings, and a sound bubbles up from the pit of her stomach as her crying finally gains voice.

"You're going to be all right," Rumpelstiltskin croons softly, tucking her head in under his chin, trying to protect her from the rain as best he can. "You're safe now. You've been so brave for so long, and you can cry now. No-one's going to hurt you. Never again."

She looks up at him, and in her red, puffy eyes, he can tell that she is back, that Belle has finally returned to him. She's never going to be exactly the same as she was before, how can she be after all that has happened to her? But now there is hope in Rumpelstiltskin's heart, hope that perhaps, together, they can pick up the pieces of her shattered life and begin to fit them back together again.

The urge to kiss her is overwhelming, but he fights it back. Belle doesn't, and he has to pull away and place his fingers over her lips.

"We can't, Belle." The hurt in her eyes is painful to see. "I'm sorry, but we can't."

"But you saved me," Belle whispers. "You chose me."

That he did. In choosing to save her, without hope or agenda, with no deal in mind, he chose her over magic. And in any other circumstances, in any other world, he would do so again right now.

"I can't protect us without my power, Belle," he says. "I can't let anything happen to you, I won't. In any other world, I'd kiss you every minute of the day. But we need magic here. I've dragged you into my world, and we're in this mess too deeply now." He rests his forehead against hers, ignoring the cold trickle of water down his neck. "I love you, Belle. More than anything."

Belle wraps her arms around his middle and closes her eyes, pressing her forehead against his, as close to a kiss as they'll ever manage in this world.

"I understand."

"Thank you."

Rumpelstiltskin doesn't know how long they stay there, embracing in the pouring rain, foreheads touching.

"This is our kiss," Belle says eventually. "This is how I know you love me."

Rumpelstiltskin nods. At length, they break apart, go inside; he draws Belle a hot bath before drying off himself. She lets him tuck her back into bed – tomorrow he'll let her get up properly; he'll make sure she doesn't catch cold from this venture in the rain, not when it worked a miracle he could not.

The rain is blessed with a magic Rumpelstiltskin will never know.

He presses his forehead against hers as she drifts off into a dreamless sleep.

"In any other world," he echoes.

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	2. Part Two

When Rumpelstiltskin wakes up (Gold, now, Mr Gold, he must remember this), he is assaulted with a double flood of memories, some he knows to be true, some he knows to be false.

It's too much to cope with, and he can already feel the telltale beginnings of a migraine, which is strange, because he knows he has never suffered a migraine before despite his memories telling him that, every so often, Mr Gold's pawnshop remains closed because its owner is flat on his back with the curtains closed and spots of light swimming in front of his eyes.

The curse worked, then, and his failsafe worked too. They're in a land without magic, and he can remember. And in those first few moments of waking into consciousness, Rumpelstiltskin remembers one thing in particular. In any other world. A world without magic, a world where true love is more of a blessing than a curse to them. In any other world, he can kiss Belle with his lips on hers, and now, he is in any other world.

"Belle!"

He sits bolt upright, winces at the throbbing pain in his temples and the wave of nausea, and lies back down again. Belle… He combs the false memories for the layout of his house and the room in which she sleeps, but he cannot find her. She does not belong in this house. Gold lives alone. There are no women in his life. His chief companions are the dusty antiques that take residence in his home and his shop. Well, it's not too surprising, really. Regina had warned that those they loved would be ripped from them. When he had traded in the knowledge of how to enact the curse, all he had asked was that Belle would be safe, that no harm would come to her.

He looks through the cursed memories again for signs of Belle, but he cannot find her. No matter. He has always enjoyed a challenge; he simply does not know her in this world, has never met her properly. But that can soon be changed. They'll have twenty-eight years to find each other again, to remember properly, and twenty-eight years is a long, long time.

All the same, it is odd that he should have no cursed remembrance of her whatsoever. Surely their paths must have crossed at some point in this world?

He tries to get up again but there's no doubt about it; today is a day when the pawnshop will remain closed. So, Rumpelstiltskin lies with his eyes closed and, since there's nothing else he can do until the killer headache dies down, he thinks. He is determined to find Belle somewhere in those memories, and to that end, he simply runs through all the acquaintances he knows in their old world, and all those he knows from the new, methodically pairing them up.

Regina is the mayor. No surprises there. Queen Snow has become Mary Margaret Blanchard, elementary school teacher. Single. Her husband is a John Doe in a coma. Triton, king of the seas, is a fishmonger. Rapunzel of the ever-growing locks runs the hair salon.

Oh, she was clever, Regina, when she tailored his curse and designed their land. Oh, she was clever. The irony is not lost on him. But as he slowly, painfully catalogues each person and correlates their two conflicting identities in his mind, he notices with a stomach turning jolt that Belle never features in these people's lives.

It is not that Belle is unknown to him in this world. It is that she does not exist in it at all.

Oh yes, she was clever, Regina. Is this her way of making sure that Belle is safe and that no harm comes to her? By leaving her alone in their old world? Rumpelstiltskin presses the heel of his hand against his forehead, almost feeling Belle's soft skin there, moments before, when her hands were closed over his around the bars of his cell, and the mist was swirling around them as the curse hit and they kissed in their own way. No, magic is not that precise, she must have come through with them, she can't still be in the old world without him.

But if she is, and if she calls for him… Rumpelstiltskin promised Belle that he would always hear her call, and would always come to her if she called for him, wherever she was.

There's nothing else for it. He came to this world to find a loved one. Now he will find two. He will find Belle, and he will find Bae, if it's the last thing he does.

X

Later, when Gold's head no longer feels like it is trying to murder him slowly, he gets up and takes a walk, wanting to familiarise himself with a town that he already knows his way around, slowly replacing false memories with real ones. He finds himself in the forest, headed towards the well. Whimsical folk believe that the waters that flow beneath it have the power to restore what is lost. But Rumpelstiltskin, as he was, knows the restorative powers of the water well enough.

The seas and oceans connect everything in this world, and he is not so foolish as to think that they do not connect all the worlds to each other. He would bet his last that the waters that flow beneath the ground and lie dormant in the bottom of the well are the same waters that ripple in Lake Nostos. There are some things in this world that Regina cannot change, and the failsafe pathways back to their own world are one of them.

He runs his fingertips over the plaque that narrates the well's story. Waters to restore and return. Perhaps they can return Belle to him.

But in order to do that, he would need something of Belle's to put in the well, and he has nothing, not even a lock of her hair. Until Rumpelstiltskin's incarceration in their old world, they had always been together, he'd had no need for any keepsakes as Belle herself was always by his side. He returns home, despondent, and settles himself in the red leather armchair.

It's then that he sees it, the answer staring him in the face. Of all the things to be brought through, of all the memories and mementos, Regina will never know the significance of that one. In pride of place on his mantelpiece, so wonderfully and ironically innocent, is the only reminder of Belle in the entire blasted town.

A chipped cup.

It is all he has of Belle, and he will not, cannot part with it. For if his theory doesn't work, he will have lost it forever. He will have lost _her_ forever.

So he leaves it where it is. He leaves the cup, unwilling to risk the only part of Belle he has left. To surrender it to the well feels like he is throwing her away, throwing part of himself away.

He's got twenty-eight years, after all. There must be another way to find her.

But in the end, he knows why he does it, why he leaves everything be, lives in the status quo and lulls Regina into a false sense of security. He is afraid of being wrong, of losing Belle altogether, of doing more harm than good.

Put simply, he does not have the courage to take a leap of faith.

X

Twenty-eight years have come and gone, and time is moving once more with the arrival of the saviour. Time is moving incredibly _quickly_ , nought to sixty in a split second, it seems, after so long in stasis. The curse is well on its way to being broken, and Rumpelstiltskin is running out of time. If he is to find Belle, it must be soon.

Twenty-eight long and tedious years have come and gone, in which he has spent hours upon end staring at a chipped cup on his mantelpiece, his only link to Belle and the one thing he must surrender if he is to have any chance of seeing her again, the one thing he has never had the courage to part with. He takes the cup down, holds it carefully in both hands, his fingers tracing over the jagged edge of the chip.

He lost her through cowardice once, and a miracle brought her back to him.

It's time to be brave for once. After all, it was Belle herself who had said it: _Do the brave thing and bravery will follow._

So it is with shaking hands that Rumpelstiltskin holds the cup over the well, trying to absorb the last lingering essence of Belle that he fancies the china contains. And he lets go.

He grips the stone hard. There's a soft splash far below him. He's only got one chance, and he's throwing everything to the wind on a single theory. If he fails, he has just lost all he has left of Belle, and he may never find her.

But if he succeeds…

X

It is pouring with rain, indeed, people are worried about flash-flooding in the parts of the town on lower ground. Rumpelstiltskin in not unduly worried by this; his house is halfway up a hill and the precious items in the shop are coated enough with lanolin to make them waterproof should the worst come to the worst. But, as the water runs down the street outside like a veritable river, he is nervous nonetheless, because he has only seen a rain this violent once before in his long, long life. The week he rescued Belle from the Pit. The week she came back to him. A small part of him, hardly daring to hope, wonders if this is a sign that he will rescue her once more. The rain brought her back to him once, perhaps it can do so again.

How they'll do so is another matter. He has been constantly on edge since he surrendered the cup to the well, the black mood for which Gold is famed in the town all too apparent.

Closing time comes and he locks the door to his shop, but before he can move away into the back room to begin his tidying, something catches his eye, further up the street. A small crowd has gathered in the rain. The sheriff, Queen Snow, the wolf from the diner trying desperately to hold an umbrella over them all. They're clustered around something. He moves a fraction to try and make out what has caught their attention.

It is then that he sees Belle.

X

She is woken by the rain, literally. It's dripping from her window onto her face. She wipes away the water and sits up, peering up at the window through bleary eyes. It's never leaked before. Her heart skips. Maybe, just maybe, if something can get in, someone can get out. Not that she knows where she would go if she could get out. All she can remember is this one room, these four walls, and the vaguest impressions of the world outside, of forests and lakes and freedom, and a herb garden and the feeling of rain on her face, drenching her. Carefully, she stands on her bed, examining the window. The mastic keeping it shut has come away slightly. She tugs at it with her fingers, scrabbling away at the watertight seal until it's just a strip of gum in her hands and the water is running down the wall.

She prises the window open, and feels the air on her face for the first time in what feels like _forever_. She's still hampered by the safety grille beyond though. Something is tapping against it, borne on the current of water that is puddling on the ground outside the basement, but for the moment, she ignores it in favour of examining the grille. There must be a way to get it loose, there has to be. She's come this far, she can't give up now.

Rising up on her tiptoes, she puts as much of her weight against the grille as she can, giving it a shove with her shoulder. The window space is small, but she is only little (the food here leaves a bit to be desired) and surely she can wriggle through.

The grille rattles ominously as she pushes it, and a few times she is forced to shut the window and retreat for fear of discovery, but after a few false starts, the grille opens, and she is facing a way out.

She's a little scared of the great unknown outside her window but whatever's out there has to be better than this. Do the brave thing and bravery will follow, a little voice inside her head tells her. Goodness knows where that came from.

She picks up the little thing that was tapping against the grille in the eddying rainwater, and she is glad she is standing on her bed and lands on something vaguely soft when her knees give out.

A chipped cup.

_Her_ chipped cup.

Everything comes back in a flood, more powerful than the torrent of rainwater pouring down on her head from the wide open window.

Her name is Belle, she is the True Love of Rumpelstiltskin, and she has come to a land without magic to help him find his son.

But first of all, she needs to find _him_.

Belle pulls herself up onto the window ledge, wriggles through the gap in the grille, and scrabbles to her feet. She is soaked to the skin and frozen to the bone, and she hugs the little teacup close to her chest, because it is the only thing that she has of his, the only thing that can link them.

She has to find him. She has to. He's here somewhere. But she has no idea where. She has no memories of this place, everything is new and unfamiliar and frightening. All she has are the memories of their old world.

But they'll be enough. They have to be.

X

Belle is cold, and wet, and confused, because whilst she knows who she is, and where she is, and why she is there, and whilst she knows that the little dark-haired woman talking to her is Queen Snow and the woman with the umbrella is the werewolf Red, _they_ don't know who they are themselves, nor who she is. She needs to find Rumpelstiltskin, but she can hardly explain that to them when they can't remember who he is.

The blonde woman she has never seen before, and Belle feels marginally more comfortable with her, because there is no chance of confusion. They came out when they saw her wandering helplessly in the rain; they're urging her to come inside, out of the cold and wet, and explain what's happening, but how can Belle explain that she simply can't explain?

She has an idea, just one little idea. Because Rumpelstiltskin promised, in their old world…

_I will always come when you call. Wherever you are._

So she calls.

"Rumpelstiltskin!"

"Belle!"

Her name cuts through the rain and Belle knows that it's him, that he remembers her, that he knows who she is. She sees him over Snow's shoulder, walking towards them as fast as a limp can carry him, without a coat and thoroughly drowned.

Belle pushes past the crowd that has surrounded her and suddenly she's there, in his arms, and he's staggering slightly at the force of her weight landing against his uneven balance, but he holds her so close she's almost in two.

"You came back," he breathes. "Oh, Belle…"

It's the way he always used to say her name when they were alone in the castle, like she's a miracle more perfect than any magic could create.

"Rumpel," she returns, in the same tone, because it _is_ a miracle, in its own way, really, a miracle that after everything, the rain has brought them back to each other once more.

Belle can't express the way she feels in words, so she simply rests her forehead against his in the gesture they have always known to mean, _I love you_.

Rumpelstiltskin returns the pressure a little, and in that moment, Belle knows, like she did all those years ago in the herb garden, that no matter what difficulties they have yet to face, they will be all right in the end.

There's just one thing left to be said.

X

They're soaked to the skin, and this time Rumpelstiltskin has no magic to ensure they don't catch their deaths, so they'll have to come inside soon.

"In any other world," Belle murmurs, and she pulls away from him to look into his eyes. "This was our kiss, but in any other world…"

He needs no more invitation. This is any other world, and he gives Belle the kiss of True Love that she has so long and so patiently awaited.

Neither of them notices as the rain ceases and a weak sun begins to set over Storybrooke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had two ways I could have done this second part, how they ended up torn apart and once more reunited in Storybrooke. The alternative ending will be posted in due course as a remix. 
> 
> The alternative ending is not quite as happy, but does have more propensity to spin out into a longer story.


End file.
